32 Once, when the Israelites were in the wilderness, they came upon a man gathering wood on the sabbath day. 33 Those who found him as he was gathering the wood brought him before Moses, Aaron, and the whole community. 34 He was placed in custody, for it had not been specified what should be done to him. 35 Then Yhwh said to Moses, “The man shall be put to death: the whole community shall pelt him with stones outside the camp.” 36 So the whole community took him outside the camp and stoned him to death—as Yhwh had commanded Moses (Num. 15:32-36; NJPS with adaptations.

Considering the serious consequences of violating Shabbat and this is the only narrative in the Torah with a description of a Shabbat violation (there are other examples in Nach),[1] it would seem that wood gathering is a good representative example of a biblical definition of a melacha [labor].

What is “laborious” about gathering wood? A straightforward answer might be that it is tiring to go out and collect stuff. If Shabbat is about resting, gathering wood or sticks from the forest is not restful. Baruch Levine, in his Anchor Bible commentary (ad loc.) suggests that gathering wood is an act preparatory to starting a fire, which is explicitly forbidden to do on Shabbat (Exod. 35:3). As both the story of the wood gatherer and the fire prohibition likely derive from the same source (P), this suggestion works nicely[2].

Nevertheless, according to the rabbinic list of melachot in the Mishna (Shabbat ch.7), gathering is not one of the forbidden labors. In other words, the only example of Sabbath violation in the Torah is not actually a Sabbath violation according to rabbinic definitions! To solve the problem, the Rabbis attempt to discern what melacha the wood gatherer actually performed in their classification.

Rabbi Chiya bar Gamda asked: “What did the wood gatherer violate? Was it detaching (tolesh) or was it reaping (kotzer)? Let us learn from this quote: “when the Israelites were in the wilderness, they came upon [a man gathering wood].” This teaches that the found him detaching wood from the ground.” (j. Sanhedrin 5:1).[3]

Rav Yehudah said in the name of Samuel: “The mekoshesh carried [the wood] four cubits in a public domain.”

Between the two Talmuds, there are four suggestions of what labor the wood-gatherer may have violated. The first suggestion is “carrying” (ma’avir), the second “detaching” (tolesh), the third reaping (kotzer),[4] and the fourth binding (me’amer).

It seems that once the system of 39 forms of melacha became fixed,[5] additional broad categories of labor could not be added. Thus, when it came to explaining what the wood gatherer did wrong, they were required to recast his actions to fit with a similar melacha that was part of their list.

Nevertheless, the question still stands, why wasn’t gathering included in the original list? Whenever the list of melachot was created, why didn’t those who designed or derived it include the one and only case law example of Sabbath violation in the Torah?

If we look again at the list of melachot that the rabbis posit the mekoshesh violated, the melacha of me’amer stands out. This form of labor is about gathering and binding sheaves together. Although in its current halachic definition, a person must actually bind the sheaves in order to violate Shabbat, perhaps me’amer was once more fluid and would have included just gathering, even without binding. It should be noted, in support of this, that the root ע-מ-ר means “bringing together” and need not include binding.[6]If this is the case, then the original list of melachot did actually include the wood gatherer, but as the system took on a life of its own, it inadvertently left the biblical case law behind in the proverbial dust (wood dust in this case).

‘They came upon a man gathering [mekoshesh] wood’ – he was detaching [wood] from the ground. Was he detaching wood from the ground or maybe his name was Mekoshesh? The verse comes to teach us, ‘Those who found him as he was gathering the wood brought him…’ Thus what do the words ‘they found a man mekoshesh eitzim’ come to teach us? That he was detaching wood from the ground.

[4] Tolesh and kotzer are generally considered to be the same melacha. Rabbi David Frankel (Korban Ha-Eida ad loc.) explains the difference that tolesh means uprooting and kotzer is when the plant is cut above the stem (תולש היינו שעוקר הדבר עם שרשו וקוצר היינו שגומם מעל הארץ).

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